by Clover Tate
Rose grabbed my arm before I’d made it a few feet. “Why? You want to find Sunny, right?”
I looked at her arm, and she dropped it. It was time to be direct. “I do want to find her. And I think she’s in your car.”
Rose pulled a handgun from her handbag. “Too bad. Walk.” She grabbed my arm again, and this time pushed me in front of her. I felt the gun’s muzzle jab into my back. I hadn’t expected she’d be armed.
“Sunny!” I yelled.
“She can’t hear you. Walk.”
I should have been terrified, but somehow the cold metal through my cotton sundress focused me. I became alert. The bird song was crisper, and every fiber of my skin felt the breeze. Rose planned to march me to the cliffs and let the Devil’s Playpen take care of the rest. When Kyle returned, Sunny would meet the same fate. If she was still alive, that is.
Rose jabbed again with the muzzle, setting me in motion. I started slowly down the trail and reviewed my options. My best hope was that someone else would be on the trail, too. Two—or more—people would stand the best chance of overpowering her. But there were no other cars parked at the trailhead. Everyone was at the festival.
We marched on. I could try to trip her. I slowed, and the gun’s muzzle urged me forward. Any stumbling, and I’d get a gunshot through my gut.
We were now halfway to the cliffs.
Then I caught an off-key rendition of “Send in the Clowns.” Rose heard it, too. The muzzle slid down my back a few inches before righting itself. The singer was getting closer. My calm dissolved in a frenzy of hope. The singer emerged from around the corner.
Never had I been so happy to see someone as I was to see Nicky Byrd. “Nicky!” I said. Rose pulled me just off the trail.
Nicky’s eyes narrowed as he looked from me to Rose and back to me again. “What?”
“I’m so glad to see you.” I fastened my gaze on his and willed him to—to anything. We could rush Rose, call the police, grab the gun, scream, anything.
He backed up a step. “Why aren’t you at the festival?”
Rose found her voice. “We’re going to one of my sister’s favorite places to bid her farewell.” With her free hand, she showed Nicky the canister.
Clarity replaced Nicky’s suspicion. “You’re Rose, Jasmine Normand’s sister.”
“Yes. I’m sorry. If you’ll excuse us, we’re not feeling very sociable right now.”
“Why is Emmy with you?” he asked.
You’re on the right track, Nicky, I thought. Keep it up.
“She’s been such a good friend,” Rose said. “She doesn’t want me to be alone.”
The gun twisted in my back. “Yes,” I croaked. “Come with us.”
Nicky, clearly already drafting his first-person account of Jasmine’s sister’s tearful good-bye, opened his mouth to say yes.
“No,” Rose said. “We must do this alone.” I couldn’t see her expression since she was behind me and to the side, but her voice softened. “I’d love to talk to you later, though. Maybe this evening? I have so much to share about my sister.”
“I’m onto a bigger story now. I’m through with this celebrity nonsense.” He lowered his voice. “Sorry. Your sister was a fine woman.”
“Tell me about your story,” I said, hoping against hope that he’d figure out that there was a pretty damned big story happening right this very minute. He wasn’t stupid. I was supposed to be at the kite festival, not walking in the woods with a can of ashes.
“Actually, I have you to thank, Emmy,” he said. “I started thinking about how Rock Point’s growing, what happened with Marcus Salek in Bedlow Bay, and I thought, this could win me a Pulitzer. So I got in touch with a friend at the Washington Post.”
He did look happy. He hadn’t even bothered with the face makeup.
Rose turned, pivoting me in front of her so that Nicky wouldn’t see the gun if he turned.
“Good-bye.” He waved and broke into “Happy Days Are Here Again.”
With him went my hope. I could have yelled, but I knew Rose would kill me just as surely as she’d somehow played a role in killing Jasmine. If I were dead, there would be no way for me to help Sunny.
When Nicky had rounded the corner, Rose pushed me forward. “Hurry up.”
“How did you do it?” I finally managed to say. I didn’t have to specify what “it” was.
Rose was silent a moment. “I suppose it doesn’t matter if I tell you. Not anymore.”
I didn’t like the finality of those words. We were now only a few minutes from the cliffs. I walked just the tiniest bit more slowly. Maybe Sunny would escape and save me. Maybe Rose would suddenly change her mind and pocket her gun and go home. Maybe the ocean below would vanish in a puff of steam.
“You probably heard that Jasmine died of an insulin overdose.” She didn’t wait for my reply. “Kyle did it, but it was my idea.” She said it almost with pride. “He’s a good boy.” The gun’s muzzle dug into my back. “How did you find out?”
“It was a different brand,” I said. “The insulin he used. I found the bottle on the beach.”
I couldn’t see her, but I imagined her rolling her eyes. “Figures Jasmine would buy a different brand. I bet she forgot her insulin and had to get more here. I should have predicted it.”
“But why did you do it?” I thought I knew the answer to this one, but I wanted her to say it.
She shifted the gun to her other hand, and it happened too fast for me to take advantage of it. “Kyle isn’t perfect. He’s a gambler. I figured it out almost right away once I started handling Jasmine’s finances.” The exertion of our climb hurried her breath. “She drove him to it. I’m sure.”
“How did Jasmine’s finances tell you anything about Kyle?” Here and there along the trail, hand-sized rocks protruded from the dirt. Could I snatch one? I could pretend to fall. But I didn’t want to be on the ground with Rose, armed, above me. The tree branches were too far above us to grab.
“Someone was stealing from her. Taking big draws of cash from her bank account and using her credit card. If it had been just one or the other, I might have thought a stranger was stealing from her. But both? It was Kyle. Luckily, he had me.”
“What could you do about impending bankruptcy?”
“You can’t bankrupt a dead woman. And a dead woman can’t ruin her husband’s career because he gambles sometimes.”
Despite the afternoon’s warmth, my skin prickled. Kyle stole from Jasmine, and when she was dead broke—she may not have even known it—they killed her. Their cold-blooded planning filled me with disgust. And horror.
“Someone will find out about Kyle’s gambling. They’ll put it together.” Like Stella. Stella saw Kyle gambling at Spirit Mountain, I was sure now, and she nearly paid for it with her life.
“No.” The word came out with force. “I’m helping Kyle overcome that. Once we’re married, I’ll take care of our finances. He knows I can save him.”
And he’ll bankrupt you, too, I thought. But Rose would always have this over him. She’d sacrificed her sister for him. She could incriminate him for murder. He’d live in an emotional prison.
“Caitlin was there the whole time. She must have heard something,” I said.
Rose laughed, and I stumbled at the strange reaction. “She heard it, all right,” Rose said. “She won’t talk. Kyle buddied up to the Kingmaker Spy’s producer. He fixed it so Caitlin would get Jasmine’s role in the movie if she kept her mouth shut.”
We’d reached the clearing on top of the cliffs. Nothing but a cement bench and low wooden parapet stood between us and the rocky ocean below.
“And Sunny?” I said. I could barely summon the breath to talk. My words got lost in the rush of the wind.
Rose understood me, though. “She has a keen eye for fraud. Could be a forensic accountant if
she put her mind to it.” Rose set down the canister and pushed me forward. I swung around to face her. She now held the handgun with both hands at chest height. “Walk. To the cliff.”
“No.” If she was going to kill me, she could damn well drag my body to the edge. If she was going to kill me anyway . . . I took a step closer to her.
Her finger curled around the trigger. The rushing wind and surf and the roar of my heartbeat deafened me. Down the beach behind Rose, kites as brightly colored as dancing jelly beans trailed their tails above the ocean. I wondered if anyone missed mine.
Rose, her back to the trail, turned slightly to see what I stared at. She was too far away for me to tackle, but I lunged forward and grabbed the canister of Jasmine’s ashes.
“Catch!” I yelled and tossed the ashes toward her chest. Miraculously, she fell for it. She dropped the handgun and lunged for the canister. Closer to the cliff. She stumbled sideways. “Watch out!” I said by pure reflex as I reached for the gun.
The canister seemed to pull her forward. It pulled her toward the bench, and she tripped, falling to the ground. The canister rolled to the parapet.
Now I had the gun, but it dangled at my side as I watched in horror.
Rose, on her hands and knees, reached for the canister, only inches from the cliff’s edge. She grabbed it with one hand while the other clutched a tuft of wild geranium. “Got it.” She rolled to standing, still clutching the canister, and the satisfaction in her face flashed to blind fear. She pulled the canister to her chest and reached forward but couldn’t right her balance.
Rose was falling. She knew it. Shock, anger, and, finally, resignation passed her face in less than a second. She closed her eyes and disappeared from view.
chapter thirty-two
I ran the few steps to the cliff’s edge and peered over. Rose was caught on a narrow ledge at least ten feet down, the hungry teeth of the Devil’s Playpen roiling in white-capped waves below her.
“Rose!” I yelled. “Are you all right?”
“I can’t move. My foot.” She clutched her ankle. The ledge she was on was just wide enough to hold her if she didn’t move, but there was no way I could save her on my own. We needed ropes and at least two experienced rock climbers. “I lost Jasmine.” Rose began crying. The sound of the surf nearly swallowed her words. “She’s gone.”
“Don’t move. I’m going to get help.”
I backed far away from the cliff. Sunny was still in the SUV. I ran back to the parking lot, holding the gun out to my side as if it would burn me. I hurried, stumbling over tree roots and whispering, “Please, please, please,” as I ran. I burst out from the trailhead. Only the SUV was there, thank God. Kyle hadn’t yet returned. I pounded on the SUV’s windows. Oh, please, please let Sunny be alive.
“Sunny! Are you in there?” I glanced up at the entrance to the trailhead to make sure Kyle wasn’t coming, then shoved the gun in my bag and picked up a rock from the row separating the parking area from the forest. I threw the rock at the passenger-side window up front. If Sunny was inside, she’d be in the back.
The glass formed a web of tiny glass particles into a bowl-shaped indentation, but they stuck together. Almost crying with anger and fear, I hurled the rock at the window again. This time it went through.
I reached inside, unlocked the door, and threw it open.
Sunny looked up. I nearly cried with relief. She was bound and gagged, and her cheekbone and jaw were puffy and red, but she was alive. Without speaking, I crawled over the seat and pulled down her gag. “Are you all right?”
“Where’s Rose and Kyle?” she said, her voice strangely groggy.
“Kyle will be here any second. Rose is trapped on a ledge below the cliff.”
“In my pocket,” she said. “Front pocket.”
I reached into her jeans pocket and pulled out a black fob and key with the rental car agency’s tag hanging from it. “This?”
“I got it from Rose while she was tying me up.”
By God, she was amazing, my sister was. Looking over my shoulder, I struggled with the rope tying Sunny’s hands. She could untie her feet herself. We didn’t have the seconds to spare.
“Emmy?” Sunny said from the rear as I backed into the trailhead and spun the car around.
“What?”
“I think I’m ready to tell Mom and Dad about college now.”
“Great. After we talk to the sheriff.”
Gravel flew as I made for the main road. Just as I reached the entrance, my Prius zoomed in from the opposite direction. Kyle looked ridiculously large behind its wheel. He saw me, and his expression morphed from intensity to shock. I didn’t stick around to see where it went from there.
“Hold on!” I yelled and slammed on the gas.
In the back, Sunny swayed, but she had a firm grip on the back of the passenger seat. “What happened to Rose?”
“She fell off the cliff.” In my rearview mirror, I saw the Prius. It was still a good distance back, but making progress. Who knew that car had that kind of pep? I pressed harder on the accelerator. The SUV’s transmission whined as it kicked up a gear.
Then a bullet hit our rear with a thunk that pulled the car to the right. I clenched the steering wheel.
“He has a gun!” Sunny said.
“Quick. In my bag.”
Sunny reached over the seat and pulled Rose’s handgun from my purse. “This?”
A bullet ripped through my side mirror. I only had a mile to go, and we had the advantage of horsepower. “Can you try and shoot out his tires without exposing yourself?” I yelled.
“I don’t know how to work a gun.”
This time Kyle’s bullet shattered the rear window. “Are you all right?” The road’s noise roared around us.
“Fine.” Sunny yelled. She pointed the handgun through the SUV’s rear. Nothing happened.
“Just pull the trigger!” I yelled
Oh no. We were closing in on a car towing a camping trailer that had slowed thanks to the reduced-speed signs posted outside Rock Point. We had no choice.
“Hang on!” I yelled again and yanked the SUV to the left. Coming at us was a Ford Fiesta. I jammed the gas pedal again and narrowly shot the gap back to the right lane as the Fiesta’s driver wailed on his horn.
We were practically on Rock Point’s Main Street now. Kyle couldn’t shoot at us here, could he? I slowed the SUV just enough not to mow down pedestrians and aimed for the sheriff’s office. There was no parking today, but I didn’t give a damn. I’d go straight to the sheriff’s own spot, reserved twenty-four hours a day for him.
The camper abruptly pulled off to the right, and now the Prius was again directly behind us. The outrage in Kyle’s eyes sent spikes of fear through me. He couldn’t shoot us here, not with all these people around. He couldn’t.
There was the sheriff’s office. I slammed on the brakes just as a shot rang out. People on the street screamed and scattered out of the way as I screeched to a stop.
The Prius, a tire shot out, plowed straight through Martino’s front window.
“Got him,” Sunny said.
chapter thirty-three
The next day, Dad took me to Salem Hospital to see Stella. I wasn’t up to driving yet. The emergency technicians said I had whiplash, and the spots on my face and torso that had been puffy and tender were now purpling into real bruises. Sunny was in similar shape. Somewhere else in the hospital, Rose lay under custody. The sheriff said she’d broken a leg and an arm, but she’d be fine to stand trial.
“Only a few minutes with Ms. Hart,” the nurse, a Russian man, said.
“Stella.” I took the chair by her bed and laid my hands on the sheets next to her.
She had an IV hooked to one arm, and a multitude of machines gathered at the head of her bed. She looked good, though. Possibly better than I did. Even in a h
ospital gown, she was elegant. If anything, her bloodless skin heightened the effect.
“You look awful,” she nearly whispered.
“Don’t talk. The nurse said you broke a few ribs, so it probably hurts even to breathe. I just wanted to see you.”
I saw the gratitude in her eyes. And the concern.
“Kyle’s in jail, and Rose is injured. She fell into Devil’s Playpen. Plus, Martino’s needs a new front window. When you’re feeling better, I’ll tell you all about it.”
She frowned. Her lips formed the word “kite.”
The kite festival. “I missed the festival, but that’s okay.” It wasn’t okay, but the alternative was worse. When Caitlin hadn’t shown up to judge the kite contest because the sheriff was questioning her, Darlene grabbed the closest thing Rock Point now had to celebrity, Annie Gluck, a resident whose uncle had once been on Mister Ed. Annie had been enraptured by a kite shaped like a teddy bear with strings of hearts trailing from his eyes. So Jack didn’t win, after all.
At least the Bloodhound hadn’t taken down Strings Attached. Maybe I’d still be able to make it through the winter. Or not.
Stella lifted a hand and patted the sheet under it. I slipped my hand in hers.
“You’re getting stronger.” I kissed a papery cheek. “I’ll be back.”
“I need a new car,” Stella whispered. “What do you think about an old Mustang?”
I laughed. “I need one, too. Maybe we’ll get matching Mustangs.”
• • •
“Are you sure you want to do this?” I asked Sunny.
“Yes.” Sunny, with a shiner the color of patent leather under her eye, sat in the workshop of Strings Attached with a dish towel pinned around her neck. Mom and Dad hovered near the stove.
“We could get a professional,” I said.
“Oh, honey.” Mom sank into a chair.
“Do it,” Sunny commanded.
I raised the scissors and clipped a dreadlock at chin length. Sunny swallowed. “Are you sure?” I said.